It’s been estimated that an average non-voice mobile use in the USA will rise to past 3 hours a day by 2016. Mobile devices have become an interconnected part of our lives for both work and leisure, and anywhere in between.

Work goes where we go, from a breakfast table to a morning commute, from office desk to a lunch break, and from an evening correspondence to after-hours surfing and brainstorming. Empowering mobile technologies shift our definitions of a workday and how work tasks should be organized and conducted.

While it may be challenging to design complex web application processes for mobile use, it is absolutely empowering for our web application development clients to be able to manage their customer data and content with mobile devices. Designing user interfaces for mobile requires special UX planning in order to establish a system network that is user-intuitive and simple to use. Data tables need to fit to mobile screens; content needs to be formatted in an attractive way; user needs to be able to track and manage data without losing track of the flow. To accomplish all this it becomes quickly clear that mobile development shouldn’t be an after thought.

Over the years, Interaria has gained valuable experience in designing and developing interfaces and applications for mobile platforms. Below is a breakdown of some of our application feature experience for mobile. We are referring to our web application work for mobile that is fully custom coded by our web and mobile software development team by using PHP, MySQL and HTML5 codes mainly in jQuery frameworks.

User Account Application Systems for Mobile

Interaria has designed User Account systems for mobile. Users are able to login to the My Account on a mobile specific platform and manage all of their My Account data specifically formatted for mobile device use.

Social Application Systems for Mobile

Users can interact, make and save posts, reply to posts and post image content using mobile web specific interfaces

Posting Photos Application System for Mobile

Users can post photos by accessing their photo libraries and use mobile specific interfaces for uploading photos to photo albums and social discussion networks

Notifications System for Mobile

Users can set and modify their preferences for text message, email and iOS push notifications

Posting Documents Application System for Mobile

Users can upload and index documents on mobile platforms

Survey Application System for Mobile

Users can conduct and enter in survey response information even when off-line (not connected to internet). We developed this iPad app specifically for medical rep use.

The bottom line: Interaria’s custom web applications integrate with mobile platforms. We specifically design and develop mobile optimized user interfaces for all streaming data driven content. We understand that our business clients and their end-users are not tied to their office desks, and that even challenging data tasks need to get done beyond the traditional definition of business hours.

Looking for robust iOS mobile app development? Interaria works with business clients that instead of or on top of signing up for mobile website development would like to have an iOS app developed, submitted and approved to the Apple’s App store for download.

To be qualified as an iOS App the developed mobile app needs to go through an Apple review process and meet Apple’s review guidelines. One of Apple’s standards for iOS apps is that the submitted app is required to utilize unique iOS specific features that cannot be simply accomplished by using HTML5 technologies and streamed as mobile web. These features should not only be iOS specific but they should also be core features for the app.

Some iOS features that Apple may consider iOS specific are import to iOS address book feature, integration with an Apple map, integration with an iOS calendar, integration with Apple phonebook contacts, and 3D touch functionalities for iPhone6 and 6S. In short, Apple is looking to approve apps that are unique by their concept and that cannot be reproduced as mobile web apps.

Interaria has developed several iOS apps for a social networking company, and is very familiar with Apple’s review process and guidelines. We can make the best industry recommendations for your company and develop feature rich iOS apps that get approved. We make sure that the core idea for interactivity, functionality and features for your business iOS app is strong and that the mobile app utilizes iOS specific features for a quick and hassle-free approval at the Apple’s app store. We are also familiar with the Apple’s enterprise program and its guidelines for iOS apps that are targeted for internal business use.

Greetings form our mobile app development team! We’ve been busy this early fall working for our social networking client on various mobile app features. We are excited to announce that Interaria is now offering Apple Watch App development services.

We recently developed an Apple Watch App for our client for social networking. The users who have downloaded the app are able to receive Apple Watch notifications from their group to their Apple Watch.

We’d be happy to demonstrate for you our previous iOS development experience and talk to you how we can boost your company’s edge with new cutting edge app solutions.

If you’d like to learn more about our Apple Watch app development capabilities, please contact Interaria, a member of the iOS Developer Program and an Apple Watch App developer in Dallas, at 214-909-3900.

Interaria develops custom Web and mobile applications on PHP/MySQL database platform. PHP/MySQL is one of the leading dynamic programming languages for developing database driven content rich Web and mobile sites and Web applications.

PHP and MySQL are open source programming languages which means that thousands of PHP/MySQL code developers and engineers worldwide contribute to the development of the language, making it richer, more adaptable and more dynamic than any other database coding language combinations.

The Interaria Application Development Framework is a custom PHP/MySQL code library developed by the Interaria team for building database driven web and mobile applications that interact with a content management system. Because we have developed a suite of PHP/MySQL codes we can tackle with custom developing new features faster while making sure that the these features are developed on a solid foundation.

We’ve been working on some very interesting mobile platform projects recently; below are some details about what we’ve been up to.

Case 1: HTML5 based iPad App Development

HTML5 based iPad web application for a medical company

Task: Interaria was recently contacted by an international medical company who needed a portable and scalable solution for collecting and processing medical data. The system was to be exclusively used internally requiring user accounts and a secure login and management platform.

Technology Solution: We identified a need for an HTML5 based iPad web application that the users can access even when off-line, and not connected to a WiFi network.

Technology Details: Interaria developed an HTML5 based iPad web application integrated with a native iOS code. In other words, we developed a hybrid HTML5 iOS app where the core of the app loads from a web server but utilizes some of the nice features of an iOS app such as push notifications and GPS enabled mapping. Our solution was a hybrid app developed with both the HTML5 code and iOS codes.

For the purposes of rapid development and rapid deployment, HTML5 coded apps creates following advantages:

1) Quick changes. We can make quick changes to the app for the client without each time needing to re/submit the app to the Apple’s App Store for a review and approval process. This saves our client significant time.

2) Privacy of the app. Not needing to submit the app to a review process at the Apple’s App Store ensures the app stays private.

3) No re-installations. In most cases, once installed, the end-user will not need to update or reinstall the app when the app has been updated/upgraded with new features.

4) Off-line functionality. The client’s users can access and use the app even when off-line. This technology improves critical usability in case of internet connection/ WiFi network being down due to a geographically remote area or unreliable area for WiFi (such as parking garages, basements, hospitals). If data is recorded within the app while the device is offline, upon re/establishing a connection to the server, data will seamlessly sync.

The bottom line:When do we recommend using html5 mobile web app over a fully native iOS app?
In situations where we want to avoid using Apple’s App Store distribution system, such as when an app is developed for private and exclusive use, and for when a client has a critical/short timeline for app’s launch.

Case 2: Suite of Mobile App Solutions

Suite of Mobile App Solutions for a Community Social Networking System

Task: For the last couple of years (and still continuing) the Interaria team has been developing mobile solutions for a social networking company.

Developed features: Timeline based feed of private content. Members can read and create posts relevant to their community. Members have an option to add comments to posts, and save them to their account. Members can join and organize subgroups. Native mobile push and email notifications are sent according to the user’s preferences. The community network’s administrator has a full dashboard of features to monitor and manage the usage of the networking system.

We continue developing and maintaining the mobile app systems by developing new features and launching system upgrades.

Case 3: Mobile Websites

Interaria continues to offer mobile site development along with website development. Our mobile web sites stream from the same content management system that is used for the dynamic web content. This minimizes any extra work for maintaining two platforms.

As Google is now putting a special emphasis on mobile specific search results, we highly recommend investing on a mobile web site if your company is considering developing a new website. Not only does the mobile site cater an unavoidable and increasingly large user base of visitors but it also guarantees that mobile users making searches on Google will reach your valuable content.

More Information
The Interaria team is very excited about providing the most applicable and fully customized solutions for the mobile platform experience. More details and a private tour are available by request. If your company is looking for a mobile solution, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 214-909-3900.

Application

Interaria develops custom software applications for web and mobile. We specialize in custom PHP/MySQL application development for web and mobile.

Brand

Brand is more than just a visual design. Brand is a narrative, a story, a message, an invitation. We position brands and create identity messaging for cross-platform communication on the web and mobile. It is important that brand messaging is consistent in all communication points, and that the brand design elements foster optimal usability.

C++

A general purpose programming language for professional applications. When C++ is needed, our development team is ready.

Development

Interaria believes in agile project development, ability to comprehend complex business models and organize them in a make-sense manner, willingness to embrace the organic process of new ideas and the ability to shift the direction for development when needed.

Experience

We’ve been in business since 2004. Our experience let’s us today take on larger projects, approach them with calmness, and deliver results steadily with excitement of course.

Finland

Midnight sun, snowy Christmas, functional approach to design. We like going to Finland.

Goal

We believe in staying on the path: “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal”.

– Henry Ford

HTML

XHTML, HTML5. Web development is our bread.

iOS

We develop iOS wrappers for mobile sites or we can develop a custom iOS app according to one’s business model.

Java

One of many programming languages we know and can apply to our projects.

Kauas

Finnish for far away.

Look

“Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough”.

– Gustave Flaubert

Mobile. MySQL.

Yes, we can combine these and make MYSQL database driven mobile web apps.

New

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds”.

– Mark Twain

Open Source

Recent media discussions have pointed and made it obvious that large systems should be preferably developed on an open source platform where the entire community of web developers contribute to the code development and debugging.

PHP

Our field of expertise: an open source web and database programming language. Scripts that talk with the database and make actions take place.

Quality

We don’t settle any project until all parties involved are pleased with the results. For active sites, our development team is ready to continue developing quality deliverables according to future site update and upgrade needs. We implement rigorous technical testing and a systematic user testing to all our deliverables.

Software engineering

Teamwork

Complex application rich websites and mobile sites require dedication and teamwork. Ultimately, our products are an outcome of close teamwork between all Interaria team members. We operate an organic teamwork approach where each team member can step in whenever needed, not just according to each member’s designated work cycle. Our designer doesn’t just hand design files to our programmers but oversees that the files will be coded according to set standards, and when needed, designs and codes will be revised until a balance has been reached between the form and function.

Unique

Unique is what differentiates. Our job as designers and developers is to highlight this uniqueness and make it the obvious choice.

Value

XHTML, XML

Familiar code languages from our ten years in business.

Yellow

We understand and respect personal preferences. “I’ve always eaten egg whites because when I was little, I didn’t like the color yellow, so my mom would trick me into eating eggs by taking out the yolk”.

– Eva Longoria

Z-layout

Creating an effect layout with call-to-action at the end of the z. Another option: the F-layout.

The lack of updates in this blog throughout the 2013 confirms: we’ve been incredibly busy. While we continue designing and developing corporate database driven websites – and remaining loyal to our old clients – we’ve been shifting our focus towards web and mobile application development with emphasis on PHP/MySQL, jQuery, HTML5 and other mobile application frameworks.

Most part of the year 2013, we have worked exclusively for a client in Dallas developing web and mobile applications with social networking and content publishing features. Due to the ongoing nature of the work, we cannot reference this work on our site but would be pleased to walk through some of the features should your company be interested in considering us for custom web and mobile application development work.

In November 2013 we signed up a full time software engineer to our team, Pyry Kuusi, who works from Helsinki, Finland as an exclusive team member of Interaria. As many of you know, we are a family based company with James Shields in web development and project management, his Finnish wife Meri Kuusi-Shields in user experience design and brand positioning, and now Meri’s brother and James’ brother-in-law Pyry in a full time position for software & web application development.

Over the years, we have realized that our clients care about one-on-one agile approach to project development which means ability to comprehend complex business models and organize them in a make-sense manner, willingness to embrace the organic process of new ideas and the ability to shift the direction for development when needed. For us, working with a small core team has meant this: ability to be flexible and less bureaucratic, all while holding a higher quality control with each deliverable.

The year 2014 will mark our 10 years in business, all with the same team. We are quite excited about the web and mobile application development for multi-platform media where users have more power to customize their content and interaction experiences and choose their device for user interaction. The concept of ‘interactivity’ will carry more meanings and make us more demands as we continue our years.

Mobile sites are designed to provide an optimal user experience for visitors accessing the web through their mobile devices. Today, we can develop mobile sites using several different mobile web application frameworks.

Interaria recommends considering the following options for mobile site development.

1) jQuery Mobile

jQuery Mobile is an HTML5 based web application framework for smartphones and tablets based on jQuery and jQuery UI. jQuery Mobile supports a very extensive range of devices and provides a seamless method for extending existing applications to mobile and tablet that were originally built to run inside the desktop browser. The key benefits for choosing jQuery Mobile for web application development are: jQuery Mobile is open source / free and has a large global development community behind it, supporting it and actively pushing it forward.

2) SproutCore

SproutCore is an open source HTML5 web application framework that specializes in delivering a smooth and full featured “native-feel” web application experience across browsers for all screens: desktop, tablet, and mobile. Apple Computer is known to have used SproutCore as the underlaying codebase for their iCloud applications including the web versions of Apple’s iWork, Mail, and Calendar. For a web developer, the key benefit for choosing the SproutCore mobile web application framework is that it is based on Javascript and it allows one to build out highly responsive and very fluid interfaces for web applications.

3) Sencha Touch

Sencha Touch is a robust HTML5 mobile web application framework with over 50 built-in components. For the end-user, Sencha Touch’s javascript engine delivers a very fast mobile browser interface experience. Sencha Touch goes way beyond providing UI elements for mobile as it is more of an entire programming eco-system unto itself. Because of its coding structure, Sencha Touch is more oriented toward software programmers than web designers. Sencha Touch is currently offered with a free Commercial Software License.

4) Responsive UI Design

Mobile applications developed with HTML5 utilizing responsive user interface design focus on adjusting the presentation of web media content for mobile device use. A strong well planned out CSS rules and coding is the key for successfully implementing the responsive design method. According to set CSS rules, the display of the applications’s content layout and components may be programmed to auto-reformat for display mobile differently than on tablet or desktop. An example of responsive web design would be for a layout that displays four columns of content in a ‘landscape’ view on tablet devises, but when in ‘portrait’ view, would auto-shift to show only two columns of content instead of 4. Further, then when the same content is viewed on a mobile devices, the content would shift to slim down further to show only one column of content. Responsive UI Design is not a mobile web application framework but rather a method for allowing well planned and coded HTML5 content to display differently on desktop, table and mobile.

Which Platform to Choose?

The decision of which mobile development framework to choose is determined by several criteria such as the mobile site’s navigation structure, amount of custom content provided for mobile users only, requirements for the design and content to adjust for different screen sizes and resolutions, the amount of custom coding required to launch your new mobile web app, and the amount of coding and development that has already taken place.

Contact us to determine which mobile web application framework provides the most optimal platform for developing an engaging mobile media presence for your company.